Month: January 2016

I think reproductive education needs reform urgently.
It’s 2016, and adults still think urine comes out of the vagina. People still don’t understand that men being aroused during rape does not equal consent. People aren’t aware that having an orgasm when raped doesn’t mean you enjoyed it. Adults still think an abortion is the killing of a sentient being when it’s just the suction of a clump of cells. Educated folk still believe that sexual experience affects the “tightness” of a vagina, when it’s just a muscle that expands and contracts for any number of reasons. Adolescents are growing up under the misconception that penis length affects sexual perfomance, when the orifices used for sex are only a couple of inches long. Children are raised under the social construct of virginity, which invalidates any sex which isn’t vaginal penetrative intercourse.
Comprehensive reproductive education is absolutely necessary, beyond the pictures in the Grade 6 Social Studies book.

What’s becoming abundantly clear with the risk of RSA losing AGOA is that it isn’t a benevolent trade agreement instituted by a world superpower to encourage trade with Africa, but an imperialist State’s attempts to use the economy to hold African countries hostage to its whims.
RSA is in bed with China and Russia in the BRICS trade block. Whatever issues with the fouls may exist, America’s actions smell foul. (Yes, that was a play on the poultry issue…) It seems the pending exclusion is retaliation to BRICS’ rejection of US set trade rules, ie Russia and China trading on their own currencies and not the US Dollar.
When Swaziland lost AGOA, it was after certain benchmarks weren’t met. However, there wasn’t certainty that there wouldn’t be new benchmarks thereafter. The shifting goalposts game played all in the name of indoctrinating the world to the US’s ideals. AGOA opened up 300,000 direct jobs in Africa, but the pressure the US govt keeps applying on states to keep it is a direct attack on sovereignty, with GDP as the weaponry.

Women’s Health has banned the phrase “bikini body” from its magazines because it’s a misnomer. They have also decided to stop giving advice on how to “drop 2 dress sizes” because they have realised it promotes unhealthy body expectations.

The continent of Africa is portrayed as a desolate cross between a tropical jungle and barren desert. The reality is Africa is home to 54 countries with cities and slums, suburbs and ghettos, much like the rest of the world. That it is a continent with diverse climates, landmarks, and cultures isn’t of interest to mass media. The media paints Africa as the dark continent, ignoring that its countries have a plethora of mineral wealth and human resources, which have been exploited by colonial rule and imperialism.